NAUKAA
CHARITRAMU
(BOAT STORY)
SRI TYAGARAJA
Translated by
Prof. William J. Jackson
Indiana
University, Indianapolis, Indiana
[Saint Tyagaraja occupies a unique place amongst the Vaggeyakaras of South India. He is acclaimed as the greatest of the composers of Karnataka Music. Prof. William J. Jackson stayed for a long time in India, along with his wife who is also interested in his research, and studied deeply the Keertanas of Sri Tyagaraya. He got his Ph. D. from the Harvard University on Comparative Religion. Triveni deems it a privilege and a pleasure to publish Naukaa Charitramu of Sri Tyagaraja rendered into English by Prof. Jackson. The Introduction and the first part are published hereunder. Subsequent portions will follow in the coming numbers. - Editor]
Introduction
Tyagaraja, the South Indian composer and poet inspired by devotion to Lord Rama, lived in Thanjavur District from 1767 to 1847. Most of his songs, which are known as Keertanas and Kritis, have hauntingly sincere and elegantly brief Telugu lyrics. By combining intense Bhakti with the elaborate art music developed over the centuries in South Indian royal courts, Tyagaraja brought Karnataka music to new heights of artistic excellence.
One unusual piece of his was a song-cycle set in a poetic narrative, called Naukaa Charitramu, - “Boat Story.” One manuscript of this work, in Telugu script, kept in the Saurashtra Sabha Library in Madurai, was published by musicologist P. Sambamurthy in 1939 and in 19621 Narasimha Bhagavatar, editor of the first major printed collection of Tyagaraja’s lyrics in 19082 was evidently not aware of the Naukaa Charitramu. The manuscript which Sambamurthy used belonged to Venkataramana Bhagavatar, one of Tyagaraja’s closest disciples. Another manuscript in Grantha script is in the Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur.
In the Naukaa Charitramu, Tyagaraja employs the central image of a silver boat in which the child Krishna and the milkmaidens sport on the Yamuna river. The Krishna-in-a-boat image is not normally found in South Indian literature, according to scholars such as V. Raghavan and T. S. Parthasarathy but it is found in North Indian paintings. For example, a work entitled “The Boat of Love” by a painter in the Kishangarh school in 1750, which is in the National Museum, in New Delhi, shows a sedate Krishna in a boat with maidens and also a Krishna standing on the shore with Radha. The image is also found in Bengali poetry. Vidyapati, for example, begins a poem:
On sharp currents of the river
The boat was launched
But Krishna was young
He could not steer it. 3
Some form of influence, possibly through an intermediary translation or an orally transmitted version of the story, probably found its way from a source such as Vidyapati to Tyagaraja’s fertile imagination. Of course, Bhakti poets of both the North and South, including Nammalvar and Mirabai, have used the image of a boat tossed in the ocean of countless births and deaths to picture the human condition.
That there was some controversy over Tyagaraja’s Naukaa Charilramu when it was first composed is likely. An oral tradition was noted by the musicologist P. Sambamurthy in which Tyagaraja’s work was questioned by critics who said the story was not found in the Bhagavata Purana or in other scriptures. To mollify these critics one of Tyagaraja’s disciples quickly produced a Sanskrit version of the story, saying it had been extant for a long time, hoping to justify and exonerate the new work. This Sanskrit version, by Kavi Venkatasuri, was published in 1947 by the Saurashtra Sabha in Madurai. Sambamurthy calls Tyagaraja a “Geya Nataka Margadarsi,” that is, “a Trailblazer of the Musical Drama,” or as he says, “the first to write an ideal opera.” Previous composers had written yakshaganas (dance dramas and musical narratives), but Sambamurthy considered Tyagaraja’s work to be an advance beyond the earlier narratives in its stunning use of Keertanas in Idiomatic Telugu and its narrative in a variety of classical Telugu poetic forms. 4
The Naukaa Charitramu was meant to be read and sung, and possibly presented accompanied by gestures, but not to be enacted as we usually think of a stage play. Verses at the beginning and end mention the “listeners” but not “watchers” of this narrative.
The Naukaa Charitramu is thematically of the garvabhanga (“pride-breaking”) type offering a lesson of conceit’s futility and surrender’s reward. It is a celebration of activities and articles associated with feminine charm and devotion, flowers and perfumes, musk marks and incense, pretty clothes, and a mood of joyous caprice, and it is flavoured throughout with festive devotional feelings. Tyagaraja drew upon his knowledge of Thanjavur women’s religious practices and household customs to colour this narrative, and he drew as well upon seminal literary works such as the Bhagavata Purana, Potana’s Telugu Bhagavatam and Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda. It may also have been influenced by the Sri Krishnalilatarangini, which is also about Krishna and the milkmaids. This Sanskrit narrative with songs was written in the century prior to Tyagaraja’s by Narayana Tirtha, who was also a Telugu-speaker living in Tamil Nadu. Narayana Tirtha was the Guru of Tyagaraja’s music teacher’s father Andal’s Tirupdaavai in the Tamil language, said to have been written in the seventh century, is also a song cycle of the milkmaids at play with Krishna.
While these works do not feature an episode about a boat ride they do celebrate similar moods arid activities, such as the milkmaids’ comraderie, and their dance with Krishna, in which, each feels she alone possesses Krishna. Some depict the Leela or sport of Krishna in which he steals their clothing while they are bathing, and thus humbles them. In a sense the Naukaa Charitramu is a tribute to earlier lyrics, showing Tyagaraja’s fondness for a whole stream of Vaishnava literature.
The Naukaa Charitramu also probably shows, Tyagaraja’s affection for the Kaveri river, which he saw daily and bathed in; in the Naukaa Charitramu he seems to attribute descriptions of the Kaveri’s beauty to the Yamuna river, which he never saw. One song in praise of the river is Choodare chelulara “Lo and behold (the river Goddess Yamuna) sisters!” The melody of this song is similar to a folk-song still sung by South Indian women at weddings.
Melodies current in nineteenth century Tamil Nadu, such as the odam or boat song, still sung by fishermen on the Bay of Bengal near Madras, formed the basis for some of the songs. For example, E nomu nochitimo (“What vows did we take”).
What vows did we take, what gifts did we make?
(To have such good fortune) dear girls!
Here’s Lakshmi’s Consort sitting next to us girls!
The rhythmic pattern of this song in the original Telugu is identical to the structure of the odam type song. The repeated word in the boat song sung by Madras fishermen is “Ailasa.” The word is sung in rhythm with the strokes of the paddle. Tyagaraja repeats the word chelulu, meaning “girls”, throughout the song.
Turning to the narration, we find that the various verses which bridge the songs and provide the flow of continuity to the story offer examples of Tyagaraja’s poetic ability in a number of different metres. He casts the story in kandapadyamu, seesapadyamu, utpalamala, champakamala, sardulavikridita and utsaha verses. Except for a few colloquial touches, these verses are in fine literary Telugu.
In the Naukaa Charitramu and in his other works, we can see how Tyagaraja’s genius valued and gathered pre-existent strands, and by re-weaving them into classical music and poetry, gave viable elements of ancient Hinduism a new yet traditional dress to wear in the modern world. His songs are examples of the bi-polar dynamics of Karnataka music in which sampradaya (tradition) and manodharma (creative imagination) compete with each other.
The other narrative with songs which Tyagaraja composed was Prahlada Bhakti Vijayamu, which includes forty-five songs. The Naukaa Charitramu includes twenty-one. Together, these two dramatizations of Bhakti ideals in practice form a symmetrical homage to the Rama Avatar. Vishnu as Narasimha, the pre-Rama Avatar, is honoured in Prahlada Bhakti Vijayamu; Vishnu as Krishna, the post-Rama Avatar, is honoured in Nauka Charitramu. Vishnu as Rama, Tyagaraja’s lifelong ishtadevata or favourite form of the divine, thus remains the central focus of the main body of Tyagaraja’s works.
My thanks to T. S. Parthasarathy, Music
Academy of Madras, to G. V. S. R. Krishnamurty,
Telugu Dept. of the University of Madras, and to Jonathan Goldberg-Bell for helping
me understand the original Telugu songs and verses of the Naukaa
Charitramu.
Notes
1 P. Sambamurthy. ed., Naukaa Charitramu by Tyagaraja. Madras, The Indian Music Publishing House. 1939, 1962.
2 Sadguru Tyagarajaswami Keertanalu. (Madras: Dowden. 1908).
3 Deben Bhattacharya, tr. Love Songs of Vidyapati. New York: Grove Press. 1970. p. 133.
4 P. Sambamurthy, Great Composers II: Tyagaraja. Madras, The Indian Music Book Publishing House. 1970. pp. 11, 213-232.)
5 For a description of these metres see C. P. Brown., The Prosody of the Telugu and Sanscrit Languages Explained. Tirupati, Sri Venkateswara University. 1977 (reprint of 1827 ed.). See also Gouri Kuppuswamy, ed., Pallaki Seva Prabandhamu by King Shahaji. Mysore, Geetha Book House. 1977.
Invocation to Ganapati
O Ganapati, Lord Supreme,
By Indra adored, and by Brahma
Master of Speech; Ocean of virtues!
Immediately I bow to you–
Take good care of me, auspicious son
Of (Siva’s consort) Parvati.
To Sarasvati
Your eyes are like those of an antelope;
Your hands are as tender as soft leaves;
Your tresses are black as a swarm of bees
You are praised by pure deities,
And by them You are sung–
O Goddess of the divine language, I bow,
To You forever! Please, O Saraswati,
Come, dwell upon my tongue,
Be eloquence for me.
To the Guru
I bow to the Guru supreme,
I bow to him who gives
Morality, wealth, pleasure, release:
I constantly revere his feet
I bow to my great teacher
Named Ramakrishnananda.
To Poets
I bow to all true poets
In the world–Unknowingly
I wrote gracefully these
Verses about Lord Krishna.
Please be my Lord and Master
Regardless of wrongs and rights
Found in these words I write.
To Rama
Tyagaraja, who has the wealth
Of knowledge, the moon
Who rose above the ocean
Of the Kakarla clan, able, in mind.
Composed this Boat Story,
Please, O Sri Raghurama
Bestow Your attention
On this rich maiden of a book.
For the Listeners
Those who listen to this story
Of the boat, written about Lord Hari,
Following the right path on this earth
They will prosper, having a long life
Having the best of children and wealth.
THE STORY
Once upon a time the beloved Consort
Of Lakshmi, He who is merciful to the world,
As Krishna, son of Nanda, after
Delighting in the cowherd maidens,
Had great joy welling up in His mind;
And being praised by Indra and others.
By choirs of leading sages, by
Brahma and Siva, Narayana decided
To bring about some water sports
In a boat with the milkmaidens.
I say in my mind, “How wonderful!”
Hearing this full story of Krishna,
Who is none other than Pure Consciousness
Embodied, as I think of the joy
In Vrepalle, and of the Gopis
Who were the very essence
Of meritorious acts, and who
In the state of being without self-interest,
Even forgot their homes and possessions
Just like knowers of Brahma
Who are selfless due to a life
Of eating leaves.
At that time the Supreme Being Lord Krishna
Full of love for all the milkmaidens
Played a melody on His flute.
If you ask in what way He made music.
Blissfully taking up His flute
To draw all the people to Him
He produced the sound
sa ri ga ma pa da
ni sa
With gentle kindness His fingers
Dancing on the flute-stops....
If you ask what the Gopis did once they
had heard the flute...
After drinking and drinking
The delicious nectar of immortality
Poured out by the flute
Into their hearing, the ladies
With elephant-graceful gaits,
With tremendous longing
And affection, went wandering
From lane to lane
Searching for Sri Krishna
Wanting Him all to themselves.
At that time, Lord Krishna
Holding pearls in His hands,
Under the pretence of buying
Small red tangy jujube fruits with them,
Came strolling along–if you ask how....
Just as the moon escapes from a clump
Of clouds which has covered it up
He, flinging back His dangling ringlets
Revealed the bewitching beauty of His face
And the women stood and stared.
After that, should you ask
What those pearls of cowherd girls
Were doing Those womenfolk
Of the cow-keeper community,
Having just matured into the beauty of maidenhood,
Were gazing and gazing upon Krishna
With the longings of love
Elated with satisfying joy in their minds.
“Come, come here, embrace us,”
They ask Him in their mind
And all these ladies, having gathered together
With the shining Sri Krishna
Were swimming in the Ocean of Ecstasy.
Then those gemlike Gopis, taking Lord Krishna
along with them, proceeded with songs
and sames, if you ask how....
(To be continued)